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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A lot of people here who clearly do not follow gymnastics or only recall John Tesh’s piano montages from the 90s.

Karolyi was not the hands on coach of these girls. Their talent was honed by other coaches. Read Dominique Moceanu’s book Off Balance. He was not her personal coach but would swoop in and take credit whenever a camera was around.

Nadia wanted never to be coached by him again after her time in Romania, despite what she says. Anyone who listens to the Gymcastic podcast will know about his abuse, including accusations of SA, in Romanian investigations of him.

This is not a good person.[/quote]

There will always be different perspectives and you can always find one that fits with your personal bias. Are you going to claim that he is not responsible for the success of the Romanian gymnastics either? He just happened to be there and take advantage of the work of other coaches? Are you going to claim that he changed into this hands-off coach once he moved to the US? He just happened to be there at the right time when the US gymnastics became competitive? You can tell yourself all kind of stories - whatever floats your boat. [/quote]

Actually there are a lot of good memoirs, including Moceanu’s, that explain how he jumped into the Romanian program and did take a lot of credit for others’ work. And it was well-known that in the 80s in the U.S. he basically poached athletes at the last minute before the Olympics, trials, nationals, etc. There are countless stories of athletes who came from their home gyms to train with him in the last year of Olympic cycles.

He took full advantage of Nadia’s success and a void in US gymnastics leadership, Cold War dynamics and the egos of U.S. officials who wanted to stick it to the Soviet bloc by flaunting him. He was a master manipulator and marketer.[/quote]

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